Appointing, Selecting or Electing bishops; We can do better than this.
We welcome Brendan Hoban’s return and wish him a speedy return to full health and continuing good health in the future.
Brendan casts his historian’s eye over the current system of appointing bishops and concludes that there was far less secrecy in 1829 than today and that “Now no one at local level really knows by what process an individual bishop is appointed. While there is a process and the scaffolding is clear – consultation at local level, a list of three candidates, discussion among bishops of the province, proposal of Congregation of Bishops (Rome), decision by the Pope, with everything organised by the current Papal Nuncio – the detail is cloaked in secrecy.” This gives rise to the perception “that an inordinate stress on secrecy has allowed individuals exert undue influence in the whole process.”